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Several anthropologists, biologists, and geneticists have challenged this assumption, but probably none have gained more notoriety in recent months than Thomas Murphy, chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, Washington. What makes his claims so intriguing is that he is a member of the Mormon Church.

Murphy insists that the Book of Mormon, touted by fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) as the “most correct book on earth,” is incorrect when it claims that Native Americans are of Jewish descent. In a 2002 essay titled “Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics,” he stated, “So far, DNA research lends no support to traditional Mormon beliefs about the origins of Native Americans.”

"I'm Jeff Ricks and I'm a Post Mormon."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFi_MsVKD3Q&feature=related

17? Nope. The account of the first version of the first vision J Smith was 14, but hey he only had fourteen versions of the first visions...so who knows for sure.

Isn't this sort of like testing the moon rocks to be sure they aren't made of green cheese?

Anwyay, does anyone have DNA from Israelites of the 7th century B.C. to compare the DNA of American Indians to?

Judge Snyder: " By the larger sum, this trial will settle the age old question of Science vs. Religion. Let the opening statements commence.

~~~~

I find the defendent not guilty. As for science vs. religion I'm issuing a refraining order. Science should stay 500 yards from religion at all times."

~~DNA Science Challenges LDS History~~

DNA Science puts the lie to LDS claims of History

...dark-skinned...

Who say dat???

"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.

The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings.

This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the 'servant of servants', and they will be, until that curse is removed."

Brigham Young-President and second 'Prophet' of the Mormon Church, 1844-1877- Extract from Journal of Discourses.

Here are two examples from their 'other testament', the Book of Mormon.

2 Nephi 5: 21 'And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.'

Alma 3: 6 'And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.'

August 27, 1954 in an address at Brigham Young University (BYU), Mormon Elder, Mark E Peterson, in speaking to a convention of teachers of religion at the college level, said:

"The discussion on civil rights, especially over the last 20 years, has drawn some very sharp lines. It has blinded the thinking of some of our own people, I believe. They have allowed their political affiliations to color their thinking to some extent.I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after."
"He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with white people. It isn't that he just desires to go to the same theater as the white people. From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage."
"That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for Negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace'...."

(Rosa Parks would have probably told Petersen under which wheel of the bus he should go sit.)

1967, (then) Mormon President Ezra Taft Benson said,

"The Communist program for revolution in America has been in progress for many years and is far advanced. First of all, we must not place the blame upon Negroes. They are merely the unfortunate group that has been selected by professional Communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder."

We are told that on June 8, 1978, it was 'revealed' to the then president, Spencer Kimball, that people of color could now gain entry into the priesthood.

According to the church, Kimball spent many long hours petitioning God, begging him to give worthy black people the priesthood. God finally relented.

Sometime before the 'revelation' came to chief 'Prophet' Spencer Kimball in June 1978, General Authority, Bruce R McConkie had said:

"The Blacks are denied the Priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty.
The Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow there from, but this inequality is not of man's origin, it is the Lord's doings."
(Mormon Doctrine, pp. 526-527).

When Mormon 'Apostle' Mark E Petersen spoke on 'Race Problems- As they affect the Church' at the BYU campus in 1954, the following was also said:

"...if the negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory."

When Mormon 'Prophet' and second President of the Church, Brigham Young, spoke in 1863 the following was also said:

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God is death on the spot. This will always be so."
(Journal of Discourses, Vo. 10, p. 110)

Yeah; Native Americans are althroughout the Book of MORMON; too.

“I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today ... they are fast becoming a white and delightsome people.... For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised.... The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.

At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl-sixteen-sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents—on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather.... These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness.

One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.

(Improvement Era, December 1960, pp.922-23). (p. 209)

Don't you know the Lamanites were originally here but disappeared without leaving DNA, linguistic, or any other trace? Sort of like John Fleming's worldwide tranquil flood theory. It happened, but so gently that it didn't leave a detectable trace.

From the article:

Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, claimed that an angel named Moroni appeared to him . . .

If you want to get technical about it, Joseph Smith said that an angel named Nephi appeared to him. The angel became Moroni after Smith's death.

He angel had no name until 1835. In his lifetime, Joseph Smith, Jr. always used the name "Nephi" for the angel with one exception. In the Elder's Journal of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, vol 1, no 3., p 42 (Jul, 1838), he refers to the angel as "Moroni." That's it. If any scholar is aware of any other contemporaneous use by Smith of Moroni during his lifetime, I'd like to know. Joseph Smith, Jr. always used "Nephi," with that one exception.

According to LDS publication Times and Seasons Vol. III pp. 749, 753, which Joseph Smith, Jr. edited:

"When I first looked upon him I was afraid, but the fear soon left me. He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Nephi. That God has a work for me to do, ... He said there was a book deposited written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang."

The digital version of the TImes and Seasons has been changed to read "Moroni" instead of "Nephi." The printed version edited by Joseph Smith, Jr., available as a digital image .pdf or .jpg is still "Nephi."

The August, 1842, edition of the LDS publication, Millennial Star, printed in England, also published Joseph Smith's story and stated that the angel's name was "Nephi" (see Millennial Star, vol. 3, p.53). On page 71 of the same volume it states that the "...message of the angel Nephi ... opened a new dispensation to man...."

In the 1853 LDS Biographical Sketch (p. 79) of Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of Joseph Smith, Jr., she states that the name of the angel who appeared to Joseph Smith was Nephi.

In both Joseph Smith's handwritten copy of The Pearl of Great Price and the 1851 edition of the same book (page 41) it states:

"He called me by name and said unto me, that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Nephi."

A doctoral candidate at Brigham Young University named Walter L. Whipple wrote a thesis titled "Textual Changes in the Pearl of Great Price." In it he notes that Orson Pratt changed the name from Nephi to Moroni in 1878. Fairlds.org acknowledges that changes were made to the Pearl of Great Price but leaves a stub link to discuss them eventually. Yes, one of those common fairlds.org stub links.

The 1853 edition of Lucy Mack Smith's "Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors of [for] Many Generations," which refers to the Angel Nephi, was banned by Brigham Young and ordered burned, according to The Deseret News, June 21, 1865. It was later republished with the name of Nephi changed to Moroni, among other changes.

"Moroni" was used by Oliver Cowdry once when Smith was alive and Moroni was used by others after Smith's death. Changes were made to some publications after Smith's death to change Nephi to Moroni.

LDS Historian Richard L. Anderson admits that the change was made in Pearl of Great Price to Joseph Smith's handwritten use of the name Nephi. He said it was necessary to be consistent with Smith's other uses. However, he doesn't cite any other use by Smith. And to my knowledge no scholar, LDS or non-LDS, has found any use by Joseph Smith of Moroni other than in that Elder's Journal. Once he gave the angel (or ghost, but that's another matter) a name, Joseph Smith, Jr. consistently said the name of the angel who visited him was Nephi. Any other attributions to Joseph Smith are to changes made to writings after his death, such as the change to Pearl of Great Price that Anderson acknowledges, or the change to Lucy Mack Smith's Biographical Sketches under the order of Brigham Young.

So it's technically correct to say that Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, claimed that an angel named Nephi appeared to him.